musings
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Wednesday, March 12
briAn from URL @ 12:10 hmm found this weird little short story on someone's blog, The funeral was, for want of a better word, depressing. Everywhere I look were men and women decked in morbid colors of black and white, giving the lifeless void deck an even more solemn, suffocating atmosphere. Everyone was hiding their grief, some trying way too hard to laugh at corny jokes, others greeting their relatives with forced smiles. Occasionally a sob or two would be heard, a glimpse of a teardrop rolling down a smiling face. Yet underneath the surface, I could practically hear the pain resonating from within the very depths of their soul. Their stoic exterior a façade, their eyes betrayed them. It was just a matter of time before the grief devoured them, reducing them to of hysterical crying babies. I watched as some people at the funeral exchanged looks, as if sharing stories and memories involving the old man who had just passed away. Others, when not putting on an Oscar-winning act, gazed wistfully at the coffin, hoping and wishing, praying for the man they knew and loved so much to return to them. I looked away. I was above that kind of display of weakness. The rest of the evening was spent at the farthest corner from the coffin and mourners on my portable game console. The trip home was a silent affair. When we got home everyone headed straight to their rooms. As I lay on my bed, I could hear through the thin walls my brother crying. My brother was always there for me when I needed him, still just a teenager but in my eyes a man’s man. Indestructible, invincible. I was not prepared to hear my superman break down and cry. I left my room and trudged to the kitchen. A cup of warm milk and cookies might help to drown out Tom. As I opened the refrigerator door, I told myself that I did not care. Life is nothing but a marathon. We all start with the some healthy vigor, lose some steam halfway through, then either dropping out of the race early or finishing it with a slow, relaxing jog to the finishing line. There was no need for sadness, no need for tears. Sentimental fools, I thought to myself. Fools with no courage or will power to keep their emotions in check. Deep down, though, I knew I was just attempting to build a wall around my heart. Having gotten the milk, I closed the refrigerator door. SLAM! Probably too hard, I winced. A few magnets fell off, along with the notes they held fast to the surface of the door. As the notes fluttered to the ground like weary butterflies heading to the leaves to rest, I reached out and snagged them out of the air. I looked closely at the papers in my hand under the dim light emitting from the fluorescent clock by the wall. I recognized some of the handwriting. Mine. The notes had sentences varying in length written on them by me a long time ago, when I was still a toddler. These sentences were punctuated by bad grammar and spelling errors, but on some of them the errors were corrected by someone else. By him. With a steady hand and miniscule handwriting, he had crossed out the spelling errors and wrote the correct phrases and spellings above. Re-reading these old notes, I thought back to the times I had spent with him when I was young. How we did my spelling together, how he used to reward me with sweets after a satisfactory English test. The other notes were written by him. The notes were exceptionally short, scrawled late at night when I had already gone to bed. Sentences like “Hey Jake, remember to bring your wallet to school!” and “The sweets for your grammar test is in the fridge. Enjoy!” I would see these notes in the morning when I woke for school. Before I left I would always bound up the stairs to his room to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. It did not matter that he was still asleep most of the time. When I was young I would always take it for granted that a new note would be stuck onto the fridge door by magnet. Now, there will never be another one from the old man on the refrigerator door for me again. Now I know, how those little notes with seemingly trivial sentences and simple questions symbolized his love for me. His little notes connected our hearts like a contract, with my glaring spelling mistakes and his scrawny scribbles. A place where we could show our love and affection for each other. My fingers traced the “computer not compwetor”. There and then, I could almost feel his hand over mine, guiding me. The walls around my heart came tumbling down. Mother found me crouched by the refrigerator. She looked a little relieved. She probably found it comforting to see that I cared, after seeing an indifferent grandson at the funeral. Her hands slipped into mine as she sat down beside me. She asked me how I was doing. Clutching the tear-stained notes, I looked up at her. “I miss him.” emo wor~ lol must be an Animorph fan.. use "jake" and "tom".. anyways, off to chiong my tutorials.. might as well, since i'm SICK and i got nothing to do.
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BRIAN NG
-18, studying in Nanyang Junior College 0936. -child of God, serving the Lord and His people in Hope Chuch Singapore. -enjoys soccer, music, treasure relationships. -check out my twitter "cheowkoon" Psalms 33:20 We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. 21 In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. |
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